


On Frost-Tipped Feathers

by cleflink



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Creature Jared, Hurt Jared Padalecki, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ravens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleflink/pseuds/cleflink
Summary: Jensen is the Keeper of the Birds for the powerful trade city of Kerak. His life is entirely given over to his duty, until the day he stumbles over a secret hidden deep below the City Palace that has the power to destroy the entire country and will change his life forever.An ice demon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2016 round of [spn_reversebang](http://spn_reversebang.livejournal.com).

_Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in a happy country that had no hunger, no war and especially no winter. The boy's family was neither rich nor influential, but he was as happy as he could be, given the circumstances._

_But then the boy’s parents died and left him all alone, and he found it harder to be happy with his life._

_Still, there wasn't much to be done about that. The years passed, and the boy settled into the role he was given. His only friends were birds, because birds are much more reasonable creatures than humans._

Jensen was woken up by a wing in the face. As usual.

"Gerrof," he mumbled, still more asleep than awake. 

He rolled away from the offending appendage, and the mattress shifted as his undeterred attacker followed in pursuit. "Rrwk," he was warned, as something hard and pointy came to rest against the space between his shoulder blades.

Jensen groaned and glared over his shoulder at the large bird currently standing on his bed. "You're not even supposed to be in here, Benevol. Remember? My bedroom is a raven-free zone."

Benevol ignored him and nudged at Jensen's back a second time with his beak. "Rrwk," he repeated, and Jensen sighed.

"Fine, fine, I'll get up. Who needs sleep anyway?" With a monumental effort, Jensen succeeded in hauling himself upright. He blinked blearily at the wall, trying to reconcile himself with being awake.

Benevol promptly hopped over to stand on his recently vacated pillow, head cocked to the side as though Jensen was performing a fascinating new trick.

"I hate you," Jensen informed him matter-of-factly, even as he reached out to brush a gentle finger over the top of Benevol's head. It earned him a throaty noise of satisfaction, and Jensen smiled despite himself.

Which was about when all of his other feathery charges - who'd apparently also come to wake him up - descended en masse in a cackling mob that made Jensen squawk and throw himself off the bed before they swarmed him. They laughed at him for that.

"You're all hilarious," Jensen told them. "Just for that, you can wait until I'm washed up before you're fed. Now scram."

He headed towards the closet without waiting to see what they'd do, and was unsurprised when they all settled on his bed instead of leaving. Bunch of overgrown feather dusters. 

Just another day in the glamourous life of Kerak's Keeper of the Birds.

  


By the time Jensen finished his morning ablutions, the ravens had all flown off up to the main rookery. He mounted the stairs after them, lacing up his arm guards as he went.

The rookery was aglow with the sunrise coming in through the open windows, a far cry from the comfortable dimness of Jensen's small room. Squinting through the glare, Jensen could just make out the dark shapes of the ravens up in the rafters; they kicked up a chorus of caws when they saw him appear.

"Yes, yes, good morning to you too," Jensen answered, as he made his way across the floor towards the wooden bin where he kept stores of berries and fruit for breakfast. He'd go down to the Huntsman's Guild later to get the meat that was set aside for the ravens, but this would do for now.

The ravens fell on the food like an invading army, and Jensen backed away with practiced ease to avoid getting whacked by their powerful wings. Nibbling absently on a handful of berries that he'd kept for himself, he wandered over to the rising sun window and rested his forearms on the wide frame. 

Before him, the great city of Kerak sprawled out in all its extravagant beauty. The sun rising over the horizon glinted like fire off the clay-tiled rooves, throwing the winding streets and sandstone buildings into dramatic, gold-edged shadow. Beyond the edge of the city, the Koran Field stretched out, even more brilliantly green than usual after yesterday's rain, the arrow-straight arc of the caravan trail creating a single dark line down the middle. Jensen was unsurprised to see a few wagons making their plodding way down the trail, all laden down with goods to sell at the most important trading city in the central realm.

Jensen sighed in easy contentment, breathing in the myriad of smells in the morning air. The musty, cloying scent of the rookery that no amount of cleaning could erase, the heavy loam of wet grass and over that, the pervasive smell of the Market.

Jensen could already hear the sound of the vendors at their trade, despite the early hour. If he leaned far enough over the sill, he could just make out the first few rows of tented stalls. Even two years ago, he wouldn't have been able to see any of the stalls from this window, but the Market kept spreading further as its reputation for safety, good weather and variety continued untarnished. If it couldn't be had in Kerak, the saying went, it couldn't be had anywhere. 

Which was convenient for Jensen, he supposed, since he would never leave the city for as long as he lived.

One of the ravens landed on the sill at Jensen’s elbow, distracting him from his musings. 

"Good morning, Pati," he said. "Finished breakfast?"

"Kraa," she agreed, tugging at one of the trailing laces on Jensen's arm guard in a pointed bid for attention.

Jensen lavished her with affection until Pati decided she'd had enough and flew off. "Always on your terms, hey girl?" he called after her and got a snarky caw in response.

Grinning, Jensen turned his attention away from the world outside the rookery and back to where it belonged. With the sun at his back, it was much easier to make out the details of the large room, from the few scatterings of runaway berries on the floor, to the hay stacks and the shadowy forms of his birds entertaining themselves.

Which was about when Jensen realized that he was one raven short.

"Huh. I could have sworn Salwar was here earlier. Did any of you see where he went?"

The other ravens ignored him, as usual. Jensen fought the urge to start worrying immediately; it wasn't as though the ravens were confined to the tower, or that they always needed to stay with him. Quite the opposite, most of the time.

But it _was_ odd for them not to be around for breakfast.

"You're overreacting," Jensen told himself. "He'll be back in no time. No need to panic."

He hoped.

When Salwar still hadn't appeared by the time the bells were chiming out the matins, Jensen was officially concerned.

"Should I be worried?" he asked Loya, who was watching him with a curiously cocked head. "I think I should be worried."

Because this wasn't just a case of a missing animal. Salwar - like the other four - was one of Divine Moya's sacred ravens. And if one of the sacred ravens was missing, it could mean disaster for the entire country of Tjal. And Jensen was the one who would - rightly - get blamed for it.

"I should tell someone," he admitted, although he found himself reluctant to do so. Half of the city guardsmen would be out scouring the streets at a single word, but Jensen still wasn't entirely convinced that Salwar just hadn't been distracted by something interesting.

Besides, this was his responsibility. It didn't feel right to rely on the guardsmen to fix things for him.

Jensen stood abruptly. "I'm going to go look for him," he told the others. "None of you go getting lost while I'm gone, you hear? I'll be seriously put out."

He got a round of cawing in response and decided to take it as agreement. Thus reassured that he wouldn't be losing any more of his charges in the meantime, Jensen headed down the stairs with a determined stride.

Of course, he soon found himself standing on the lawn before the tower, not really sure where to start. Should he venture into town? Or try the City Palace? He supposed he could go to the Market and see if he could find crowds of randomly genuflecting shoppers…

A winged shadow soared across the grass, and Jensen instinctively raised his right arm just in time for Onnes to swoop down and land on it, the sturdy leather of Jensen's arm guard protecting his skin from those sharp talons.

Jensen looked at Onnes. "Are you going to help? Makes more sense than me running around like an idiot on my own, I guess. I don't suppose you know where Salwar's got to?"

Onnes cawed an affirmative and launched himself into the air. More than used to this kind of behaviour from his ravens, Jensen shrugged and followed in pursuit.

The raven traveled in a straight, sure line away from the city centre, never once wavering. Jensen followed without question, jogging a little to keep up with Onnes' easy glide. They hadn't gone far when Jensen realized their inevitable target.

"The temple?" he said aloud. "What would Salwar be doing there?"

Onnes ignored him. Jensen huffed in pointed irritation, and Onnes ignored that too.

Jensen was so underappreciated.

They reached the temple a few minutes later, and Onnes swooped inside before Jensen could decide whether or not to call this off. Sighing, he went in after him.

"I really don't know why you think he's here," Jensen hissed at Onnes, as he crept down the corridor. Strangely, he almost felt like he was doing something wrong being here this early in the morning. "You all avoid the temple like the plague when it's not time for petitions. We should just-"

"Bird Keeper," a startled acolyte said, when Jensen nearly collided with her because he was too busy glaring up at Onnes to watch where he was going. 

"Oh! Sorry," Jensen said. "Erm, hello."

She smiled. "What brings you to the temple so early, Bird Keeper?"

"Uh, nothing really. Just getting some air," Jensen offered weakly. He coughed and gestured at Onnes, who was perched on the balustrade, watching their conversation with pointed interest. "Onnes is the one who chose our destination."

The acolyte's eyes widened. "Lord Onnes," she said, bowing deeply. "Moya's guiding light shines."

"And her divine wind brings wisdom," Jensen finished automatically. He coughed. "So, we'll just, uh, leave you to your duties?"

"Of course, Bird Keeper," the acolyte said, still bent over at a precise angle at the waist, and Jensen beat a hasty retreat before anyone else showed up.

Onnes ghosted along above him, laughing.

Jensen scowled at him. "Are you just having fun at my expense, or is there a reason we're here?"

"Kraa!" Onnes said, and took the lead again.

If anyone had asked, Jensen would have said that he knew the temple better than the back of his hand. So he was surprised to find them travelling down a corridor that he was sure he'd never seen before, one that dead-ended in a shabby little door in a poorly lit alcove.

Onnes landed again on his arm. "Rrwk," he said, sounding pleased with himself.

Jensen was unimpressed. "The door's closed," he pointed out. "Ravens haven't got fingers. How could Salwar possibly have gotten in there?"

But Onnes was undeterred and refused to budge until Jensen reluctantly reached out and pulled the door open. The hinges moved sluggishly, stiff with disuse.

"This is ridiculous," Jensen told him. "Just in case you wanted to know. I don't think this door's been opened in a year."

As soon as the gap was wide enough, Onnes launched himself off Jensen's arm and into the gloom beyond. Because ravens were the most irritating species in the world.

"I should leave you here," Jensen muttered, even as he walked through the door and down the stairs beyond it. "It would serve you right, leading me on this wild goose chase."

The staircase was neither long nor steep, and so Jensen soon found himself standing in a dirt-walled room filled with boxes, barrels and what looked like old linens. Light filtered in from a pair of small windows near the ceiling.

"It's a storeroom," he observed. He couldn't see Onnes from where he was standing, so he ventured further into the maze of stacked objects, careful not to trip over anything. He rounded a tall pile of boxes, still talking aloud. "I don't see why you needed to bring me all the way down h- oh!"

Half-hidden among the barrels and boxes, Jensen found a very large hole in the wall, a handspan taller than he was and nearly wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Onnes was perched on a barrel next to the door, looking quietly smug.

"What the-?" Jensen walked closer.

It was more of a doorway than a hole, he realized: the edges were supported by wooden beams, and there was clearly a long, narrow space on the other side, for all that Jensen couldn't see more than a foot down it before the darkness swallowed up the details. The ground was pitted with the twin ruts of cart wheels, suggesting that a great deal of traffic had once travelled through here. The air coming through the doorway was cool. 

With a jolt like recognition, Jensen realized what this had to be.

"Oh, wow. I thought they'd sealed all the mine entrances centuries ago," he said, running careful fingers along one of the wooden beams. "Once they'd finished digging out all of the building materials they needed for the City Palace. I wonder why this one got missed." He glanced sharply at Onnes. "How did you find this?"

Onnes croaked at him.

"That was not helpful." Jensen peered at the tunnel entrance, frowning dubiously. "It's very dark. Are you sure Salwar's in there?"

Onnes croaked again and nearly clipped Jensen's head with his talons when he abruptly flew into the blackness.

"Onnes! The Trade Winds take you!" Hurriedly, Jensen cast about in the boxes around him, thanking Moya when he managed to unearth a lantern. The oil inside had long since gone dry, but the barrel that Onnes had been perching on turned out to be full of fresh stuff.

Something in the back of his mind couldn't help but find that terribly convenient, but Jensen was too concerned about the fact that he'd now lost two sacred ravens to care about that right now. After a few false starts, he started the lantern burning, then took a deep breath and went in.

It was cool in the tunnel, which made sense since he was underground, Jensen supposed.

"Onnes?" he called, and got his own voice echoing back at him in the narrow space. The circle of light thrown by his lantern showed nothing but well-trammeled sandstone underfoot and roughly carved out walls on either side. The tunnel widened as he walked, new tunnels branching off at odd angles seemingly randomly.

Jensen stopped walking; if he got himself lost down here he might never find his way out again. "Moya's sake, Onnes, where _are_ you?!" he demanded, and nearly jumped out his skin when Onnes materialized right in front of him.

"Kraa!" 

"Augh!" 

The lantern clanged loudly as it hit the ground, startling him a second time, and it was pure luck that it didn't go out. 

"What was _that_ for?" Jensen demanded, once he'd got his breathing under control. With shaky fingers, he reclaimed the lantern, ignoring the dent that he'd put in the side. "Can we just go already?"

Onnes cawed in a way that managed to sound like a negative, then flew off down one of the tunnels on Jensen's left, gliding at a slow enough pace that he stayed within the circle of the lantern as long as Jensen followed without hesitation.

He was going to wring Salwar's neck for this.

It was no time at all before Jensen was hopelessly lost. By contrast, Onnes seemed completely sure of his heading, which Jensen hoped he could trust. The sacred ravens had always been far smarter than ordinary animals, but he was very possibly risking his life right now on the belief that Onnes was actually leading them somewhere. 

"You know," Jensen said. "Even if you could talk, I don't think you'd tell me anything. You enjoy being mysterious too much."

Grimly, Jensen put the thought out of his head and kept walking, wrapping his free arm around his chest for some added warmth. He wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed earlier, but it was getting colder. Much colder.

Suddenly, a shaft of light gleamed in the darkness. Jensen mentally crossed his fingers that they were nearly at the end of this adventure. All he wanted to do now was collect Salwar and get back under the sun. Moya's light, it was cold down here. His breath was visible in the light, steaming on the air in a way Jensen had never experienced before.

The tunnel dead-ended another twenty paces ahead, and the light turned out to be coming from a narrow gap in the wall, near to the ground and much too small for Jensen to get through. Putting the lantern on the ground, Jensen ran his hands over the rough stone, trying to see if there was some way through. 

"Looks like there was a doorway here but someone's rolled a big rock in front of it," he observed, glancing down just in time to see Onnes' sleek form wiggling through the gap and vanishing.

"Onnes!" Jensen protested, dropping to his knees to look through the gap. "I can't fit through there, you stupid bird!"

Which, he realized the moment the words crossed his lips, was an almightily foolish thing to say. 

That wasn't daylight shining through that gap, which meant that there were probably people on the other side; why else would there be light? Jensen had spent his entire life around the ravens; they were his only friends, as embarrassing a thing as that was to admit. As such, he tended to forget to treat them with the respect that they received from the rest of the country. If anyone were to overhear him calling one of the sacred ravens a stupid bird, well, Jensen didn't like to consider how badly that would go for him.

But no immediate protest followed his words, no angry exclamations or scandalized indrawn breath, and Jensen gradually relaxed. Once he was reasonably confident that he wasn't about to be dragged away by his hair, he turned his attention to the issue of how to get through a gap that was manifestly too small for a man his size.

Settling his fingers firmly around the edge of the offending stone, Jensen hauled back with all his strength, his sandals sliding uselessly on the uneven ground. His arm muscles sang painfully with the effort, but Jensen eventually managed to widen the gap enough that he'd be able to squeeze himself through. The lantern he blew out and left in the tunnel, figuring that he might need it to get back if this passage didn't lead anywhere useful.

It took him a moment to sidle through the space he'd made for himself, and Jensen winced against the light - shockingly bright after so long spent in the dark - and the painfully cold air that hit his face like a slap. Shouldn't it have been warmer here than it had been in the tunnels? 

Gradually, his eyes adjusted, and Jensen took a moment to look around.

He was in a cavern, he supposed, about the size of the courtyard at the temple and boasting a ceiling high enough that Jensen would've needed a ladder to touch his fingers to it. The walls were uneven but smooth from what looked like wear, not intentional effort.

There was a large pile of stones and rubble to his left, lying in a messy pile higher than his head, as though it had been cleared out of the tunnel and then just left where it lay. Something about that struck Jensen as odd. Where was he? It was hard to make out much from where he was standing, since the tumbled stones cut off his view of most of the room. And the one thing he _could_ see only made him more confused.

The cavern had been divided in half. Metal bars spaced at narrow intervals stretched down from the ceiling, embedded directly into the rock, from what Jensen could tell. They were a tarnished gray colour, lacking in either shine or polish. Their obvious neglect, coupled with the rubble, made the room look somehow… forgotten, which hardly made sense given that someone had wasted the effort to hoist and light lanterns. Only-

Jensen frowned. There was something wrong with the light. It flickered and pulsed like lantern light, that much was true, but it was the wrong colour: a whitish-blue instead of the warm burnt orange that Jensen would have expected. And the more he looked at those bars, their uniform spacing, the more he realized that they resembled nothing so much as a cage, although much bigger than any he'd seen in the animal pens at the Market. What animal would require such a large cage to house it?

And which side of the bars was Jensen on?

He edged his way carefully forward, curiosity getting the better of his wariness. As he stepped fully away from the boulder, several unexpected sights competed for his attention:

White fire glowed in the lanterns, impossible and cold.

Something white lay like a bed of wildflowers across the floor, glittering in the light of the lanterns.

Salwar and Onnes nestled comfortably in the white stuff on the other side of the bars.

A man was sitting next to them, staring at Jensen with white eyes.

"Moya's Light!" Jensen exclaimed, plastering himself against the rock wall behind him in startled panic. 

The man with the white eyes said nothing, just continued to sit and stare at Jensen through the tangle of his overlong hair. 

He was dressed like a savage, Jensen couldn't help but notice. He wore calfskin breeches and a loose shirt with oddly billowed sleeves. His feet were bare. 

They stared at each other in silence for several heartbeats, until Jensen could bear it no longer. 

"W-who are you?" he asked, and told himself that it was the cold making him stutter.

The man's head cocked, hair sliding across his shoulders. "Surely they still tell stories of the monster beneath the City Palace," he said, in a deep, surprisingly gentle voice.

And Jensen's blood ran cold for a very different reason. Because yes, they did.

"Khretha," he breathed. Ice demon. 

The man - the khretha - nodded. "There's no point in being afraid." It gestured with one hand at the bars separating them. "I'm no harm to anyone behind these bars." It smiled, a flat, mirthless expression. "Silver, you understand."

Which was all well and good, except for the fact that it wasn't the only thing behind those bars.

"Salwar! Onnes!" Jensen called, fighting not to sound as terrified as he felt. "Come here, please."

As one, they cocked their heads at him, then looked away from him. They didn't move.

Jensen wanted to cry.

Something that could almost have been sympathy crossed the khretha's face. "I'm no harm to them either, I swear to you."

"If that was so, they wouldn't have been lured down here." Squaring his shoulders against the urge to run, Jensen took a shaky step forward. "Give them back."

The khretha surprised him by smirking, just slightly, at that. "If you think these ravens can be compelled to do anything they don't want to, you're not as well informed as I thought." 

"Then what are they doing down here?"

"Visiting," the khretha said. "They've been doing it for years."

"What?" Jensen said, startled. He would have noticed, wouldn't he? But the words didn't sound like a lie. "Why?"

The khretha's shrug was anything but convincing. "They think I'm lonely."

Despite him, Jensen's fear faltered at that. Looking anew at the khretha, curled up like a proud but broken animal in this hidden cage, Jensen couldn't help but recognize something kindred. 

He too knew loneliness.

"Do you have a name?" he asked, before he'd quite realized he was going to.

The khretha nodded. "Jared."

"Jared," Jensen repeated, testing out the strange syllables on his tongue. He bit his lip, considering, then blurted, "I'm Jensen."

"I thank you for your name," Jared said. He paused a moment, before adding, "It's been a long, long time since someone has been willing to do that."

Jensen wasn't sure what to say to that. Carefully, he drew a little closer to the bars, a thread of fear still running beneath his skin. His steps took him up to the edge of the white, and he hesitated only briefly before stepping into it.

He immediately jerked his foot away with a startled curse. It was cold!

"It's snow," Jared told him, while Jensen tried to shake the lingering burn out of his skin. "It's cold, but not dangerous as long as you're dressed for it." Those white eyes skimmed up and down Jensen's body, taking in his sandals and belted tunic. "Which you are not."

"I've heard about snow from the caravan traders," Jensen said, more fascinated than he was willing to admit. "But I've never seen it before. Where's it coming from?"

"Ah," Jared said delicately, and Jensen remembered what else the stories said about khretha, just before Jared admitted, "that would be my fault."

And Jensen didn't want to think about that, about the ice and snow that had nearly buried all of Tjal long before he was born, so he cast about for something else to say.

"Are you making the-" He didn't know what to call it. "White fire, too?"

"I am. It's ice, of a fashion."

"Why?"

"Because I don't fancy sitting in the dark all the time," Jared said, with a matter-of-factness that startled a nervous laugh out of Jensen.

"I can understand that." Jensen licked his lips, curiosity warring with courtesy. "How- how long have you been down here?"

Jared's face shuttered. 

"Never mind, it was rude, I shouldn't hav-"

"Since the last time winter came to Tjal," Jared cut in.

Jensen gaped, stunned. "I, but that's- there hasn't been a winter in Tjal in nearly two hundred years!" 

Jared said nothing. 

"But you're…" Jensen gestured broadly, trying to convey the fact that Jared looked no older than him.

"I'm khretha," Jared said, as though Jensen could have forgotten. "A lifetime for you is no time at all to us."

"Unless you're alone in the dark," Jensen said without thinking, and felt like a terrible person when it made Jared flinch.

"Yes," Jared agreed, and he sounded so _sad_. "It seems like a lot longer then."

Silence lapsed again, awkward and uncertain. Jensen wasn't sure how to break it. Wasn't sure he wanted to break it.

Something nudged his leg, and Jensen looked down.

"Kraa?" Salwar asked him, and Jensen had no idea when he'd left Jared's side. A glance revealed Onnes making his own way back to Jensen, the gap between the bars just enough to allow the raven to slide between them.

"You should go," Jared said, his words reflecting Jensen's thoughts so well that he wondered for a moment if khretha had other powers beyond the ones he'd heard about. "The afternoon petitions will be beginning soon."

And Jensen wanted to ask him how he knew that when he was trapped in a forgotten pit beneath the city with no sun to track the time by, but he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Yeah," he said instead. "We should. I'm guessing we can't go that way?" He pointed at the long staircase leading up on his right.

"It leads into the City Palace," Jared said, ignoring the way Jensen did a startled double-take at that. "And you're not supposed to be down here, so it's not a good idea, no."

"Right. Okay. Um, goodbye?"

"Goodbye, Jensen," Jared answered, inclining his head gravely. 

Strangely unsettled by the moment, Jensen turned to go.

Then paused.

"I could… come back, maybe?" he offered, not even sure why he said it.

Jared stilled, his pale skin and strange eyes making him look like nothing so much as a marble statue. "Why would you do that?"

Jensen shrugged defensively. "Does it matter?"

"No. I suppose not." Something that could almost have been a smile flitted across Jared's face. "You should probably find something warmer to wear first," he suggested.

Later, Jensen wouldn't remember much of the return through the tunnels, just a vague impression of stumbling around in Onnes and Salwar's wake, feeling the chill slowly leave his limbs and wondering why the image of Jared, curled up in his cage, was so much slower to go. Both sensations left him feeling deeply unsettled.

It was with profound relief that Jensen re-emerged in the storeroom and felt the heat of the sun, however weak and diffused, coming through the small windows.

"Thank Moya. I'd almost forgotten what being warm feels like. Let's get back and show the others you're not missing anymore, Salwar. Then we'll have just enough time for me to feed everyone before the petitions start." He leveled a finger at both of them. "And the two of you are going to attend. Consider it your comeuppance for the mess I've had to deal with today."

He swept up the stairs without waiting for the chorus of unhappy caws that he knew would start up in response. It made him wonder, not for the first time, if people would be so keen on petitioning if they knew just how reluctantly the sacred ravens played their part.

But then, everyone had to fill their lot in life. Sacred ravens and their Keeper included.

A scant hour later, Jensen found himself back at the temple, this time behind the screen that separated the temple sanctum from the public petitions gallery. He was ensconced on his normal chair, off to the side and generally out of sight of all the people who came in to present offerings and prayers to the massive statue of Divine Moya in the centre of the sanctum. It wasn't him they had come to see after all; the ravens were Moya's emissaries, and it was to them that the people prayed, in the hopes that they'd carry those prayers with them the next time they flew up to Moya in the sky. Jensen's role was to keep an eye on the ravens and make sure they didn't try to escape.

Onnes and Salwar were listening from the gilded perches that stood to either side of Moya's statue, kept in place by the fine silver chains wrapped around their legs. As usual, they bore the confinement with resignation, not that anyone other than Jensen would have been able to tell.

The current petitioner was rambling on about the harvest or the caravan trade or some such business; Jensen wasn't really listening. He didn't tend to listen on the best of days, and he had more important things to focus on today. Namely, Jared.

Thinking back on his morning, it almost felt like a dream. Had he really done all that? And, more to the point, what was he going to do now?

Jared was a khretha. The kretha had nearly buried all of Tjal in an eternal winter long ago in the time of kings, and it had eventually taken war to stop them. Jensen had never known winter, no Tjalian in seven generations had known winter, although he'd heard enough from foreign merchants to know that Tjal was better off without it. And if it felt anything like the cold inside Jared's cavern, Jensen could see why.

The rumours about the khretha locked beneath the City Palace had been circulating for as long as Jensen could remember; it had been years since he'd believed them anything but ghost stories to frighten children into behaving. To think that there actually _was_ something down there, something capable of destroying the entire city of Kerak if it wasn't safe behind silver bars, made a shudder run down Jensen's spine. 

He shouldn't have offered to return. Jared wasn't human, and he was more dangerous than Jensen could fathom. Jensen should forget about the tunnel and the cage and Jared's sad smile and never go back again. It was the rational choice.

And yet…

The ravens trusted Jared. And Jensen had learned to trust their judgement.

 _"They guide all of us towards Moya's light,"_ his mother used to say, hands and voice patient as she taught Jensen how to care for the ravens that would one day be his responsibility. _"It is our duty as Keepers to listen to them when others would question."_

Grief, sudden and sharp, welled up at the thought of his mother. It wasn't surprising, but Jensen did his best to swallow it just the same. It had been 14 years; he ought to be used to being alone by now.

To distract himself, Jensen looked at the statue of Moya. She towered tall and strong above the room, her eyes to the sky and her hair streaming behind her like a banner. Jensen's attention lingered on her long cape, artfully carved to look like the wings of her faithful messengers, as though she might take flight at any moment.

It gave him an idea.

"A blanket," Misha repeated, as though he wasn't sure whether to sound dubious or amused by the idea. The Market bustled and swirled around Misha's stall, replete with the breathless chaos of hundreds of lives circling without intersecting.

Jensen refused to let the busyness fluster him, no matter how out of his depth it always made him feel. He wasn't used to chaos. "Yes, for the third time. What's so hard to understand?" 

"Oh, nothing," Misha said, in a tone that meant anything but. "I'm just not sure what you need a wool-stuffed blanket for. Are you expecting a cold snap to come through?" 

"Of course not," Jensen said, trying not to wince at how stilted he sounded. 

Misha arched any eyebrow.

"The rookery gets cold at night," Jensen improvised desperately. He should have come up with a better excuse. "And the ravens keep waking me up at all hours."

"Hmmm."

Jensen forced an impatient sigh. "Are you going to sell me the material or should I go ask a different merchant who isn't going to judge my life choices?"

"On the contrary, I'm always happy to help you, Jensen." 

Jensen eyed him warily. "Because we're friends? 

Misha snorted. "Don't be so naive. Because you're good for business."

That was news to Jensen. "I am? How?" 

"Moya save me from your naivety," Misha said, shaking his head. "Because of your entourage, obviously. It's good credit to be known as the merchant who caters to the needs of the Keeper of the Birds."

Reflexively, Jensen flicked his eyes upwards to where Loya and Pati were sitting on the awning of Misha's stall, watching the goings-on in the market with interest. All of the shoppers and merchants stopped to bow to them before continuing on their way.

"I probably should have realized that."

"You really should. But I'll forgive you. Which I'm going to show by finding the fixings for you to make your very own unnecessarily warm and puffy blanket."

"Great," Jensen said, and tried not to drum his fingers impatiently on his thigh while Misha rooted around through his wares. "So, uh, anything interesting happening the world?"

"I hope you never do anything illegal," Misha said, his voice slightly muffled by his position under one of the tarps. "You're terrible at being casual."

Jensen was not flushing. He wasn't. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course not." Misha reappeared and dropped a pile of canvas and wool onto the counter. "But to answer the question that you have no interest in, there are reports of Gol raiders causing trouble in Glyn, so now is not a good time to go abroad."

"I'm not allowed to go abroad," Jensen said absently.

"Well, that's a good policy to keep following right now. I hear Gols like the pretty ones. Now," Misha said, and Jensen was definitely flushing this time. "Is there anything else you need for this 'blanket' of yours?"

It took Jensen three days to fashion some clothes that would hopefully keep him from freezing his toes off in Jared's cavern. It took him another five days to stop wavering between the firm conviction that he was a moron and the powerful desire to return long enough to get up the nerve to go.

Salwar and Benevol went with him this time, which Jensen appreciated since he had no more desire to get lost in the mines this time than he had the first. The trip seemed at once faster and a thousand times longer than he remembered, and he realized that his palms were clammy with nerves by the time he reached the end of the final tunnel.

"Why are you nervous?" he asked himself, as he set down the lantern. He'd pushed the rock back into place behind him last time, lest someone come down and discover it, and his hands kept slipping as he tried to pull it far enough to get through. "He can't do anything to you. You'll be fine."

And if that fear _wasn't_ what was making his pulse jump, as the rock finally slid free with a low, grating rumble, Jensen decided that he'd rather not think about it.

Brushing a hand self-consciously down his new cloak, Jensen stepped out from around the rocks, looking immediately for Jared.

He found him standing stock still about two paces away from the bars, staring at him with an expression that Jensen couldn't decipher.

"Hello," Jensen said lamely. He dared to wander closer, noting as he did that Jared was taller than he'd realized. 

"You're back," Jared said blankly, and Jensen stilled, wondering if he ought to be backing away slowly.

"Yes," he agreed. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" Jared lurched forward, which startled Jensen into jumping back, his heart pounding.

"Um," Jensen said, after a moment of them staring at each other in a frozen tableau. 

Jared's expression smoothed out. Jensen decided to pretend that he hadn't seen the naked panic and longing that had been there a moment before.

"I didn't mean to scare you," Jared said, those white eyes boring into Jensen in a way that he tried and failed not to find unsettling. "The ravens said you were coming back, but I must confess that I didn't believe them."

"You can understand the ravens?" Jensen asked, intrigued.

"Of course. Can't you?"

Jensen shrugged. "Not literally. After a lifetime of looking after them, I can usually tell what they want, but it's all just 'Caw! Caw!' to me."

"A lifetime?"

"I'm the Keeper of the Birds, like my mother before me. I've been around them since I was born."

Jared was still eyeing him. "I see they helped you with your new clothes, as well."

Jensen couldn't deny the urge to shift slightly to show off the inky, feathered cloak that he'd made for himself. "There are always molted feathers lying around the rookery. I just, borrowed them."

He'd also replaced his sandals with a pair of tall boots that he'd bought from another, less nosey, merchant, and then lined with the soft lamb's wool that Misha had sold him. The overall effect made it much easier to tolerate the frigid air swirling through the cavern, although his face and hands still felt the sharp bite of the cold. He tucked his hands under his arms and shifted so that the cloak covered more of his thin tunic.

"It looks good," Jared said in approval, and Jensen suddenly felt warmer.

"What about you?" he asked, to cover his pleasure. "Aren't you cold?"

"I'm the living embodiment of winter," Jared said. He sounded vaguely amused. "Do you think I get cold?"

And now Jensen felt like an idiot. "Ah, I guess not. Sorry."

Jared waved it off. "It's fine."

Awkward silence fell between them, and Jensen realized to his chagrin that he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. He hadn't thought any further than his strange desire to come back. He shifted uneasily.

Surprisingly, it was Jared who broke the silence.

"Tell me about the city," he said. "I suspect it looks much different than I remember."

"I can do that," Jensen said, and made himself comfortable.


	2. Chapter 2

_The birds were sad to see the boy looking so lonely, so they helped him make a friend. And, to begin with, the boy wasn’t sure if he could trust this strange new person, but he was ever so lonely and the birds liked the stranger, so he decided to try._

_And it was the right choice._

_As the birds looked on in pleasure, the boy and the stranger grew to know each other. And they became the best of friends. And then his friend became even more to him than that. And for the first time in a long time, the boy was happy._

  


Visiting Jared spiraled quickly into a habit.

He emptied out one of the many boxes in the forgotten storeroom and used it to hide his feathered cloak and wool-lined boots, along with the lantern and enough oil to keep it burning for a year.

He carefully didn't think about whether he'd need that much.

At first, Jensen only went every now and then, sitting nervously on one of the tumbled rocks near the tunnels and trying not to look directly at Jared's alien face. Jared never seemed to mind his standoffishness, and instead took an almost childlike pleasure in the company that Jensen offered. He was quiet, but not shy, and surprisingly gentle in voice and action. The ravens clearly loved him. Someone else might not have found that as reassuring as Jensen did, but the ravens had been his only companions for a long time, and Jensen wasn't about to question their instincts or his own.

He dared to start sitting closer, fascinated by the graceful way Jared's hands moved when he talked. He started noticing things other than Jared's haunting eyes, like the way he flinched at loud noises and the fact that his long body was frighteningly skinny.

"They only feed me once a day," Jared admitted, with a helpless shrug, which was when Jensen started buying extra food from the Huntsman's Guild and smuggling it through the tunnels. The grateful smile he received in return made him feel warm despite the frigid air. 

Jensen told himself that it was in his nature to want to keep people fed and cared for; that was his main role as Bird Keeper, after all. The fact that Jared, for all his power, sometimes looked painfully _brittle_ , in a way that suggested he was only a step away from splintering into a thousand pieces, only added to his determination.

Jensen's sporadic visits started occurring more frequently after that, going from a couple of times in a fortnight to every other day by the time the summer was at its height. He and Jared talked about Jensen's life, and Jensen found himself telling Jared things he'd never told another living soul: about what it was like to grow up in the rookery, about his blurry memories of his long-dead father, about the way he found the ravens easier to understand than people. 

They also talked about the things Jared remembered about the outside world, which were depressingly few. 

"Do you know what I miss the most?" Jared asked him, after a conversation about Jensen's favourite place to watch the sunrise. "About being free?"

Jensen, who couldn't even begin to fathom what it must be like to live a dozen lifetimes trapped in the earth, could only shrug. "What?"

"The stars." Jared smiled, his head tilted up towards the ceiling as though he could see straight through the layers of rock to the sky far above. "They're amazing: all alone in the dark night, but still shining so brightly." His eyes tilted Jensen's way, no longer strange. "You can't imagine what I'd give for a chance to see them again."

Only once did Jensen dare ask what Jared was doing trapped down here, why he hadn't been killed or driven out of Tjal like the rest of the khretha.

And Jared, who'd answered his every question without hesitation, simply shook his head. "Ask me anything but that. Please, Jensen."

Jensen, who'd not spent so much time with anyone other than the ravens since his mother had died, didn't dare press the issue. And so, as the height of summer passed and his visits to Jared became an intrinsic part of his daily routine, Jensen was somewhat surprised to realize that he was happy with his life in a way he never had before.

  


"Bird Keeper!" a voice called, just as Jensen stepped out of the tower, and Jensen turned to see a broad-shouldered figure in a bright saffron robe heading towards him.

"Tahmoh," he answered automatically, before realizing his error. "Uh, I mean Lord Keeper. Sorry."

Tahmoh chuckled, blue eyes sparkling as he waved a hand. "No need for that. Friendship takes precedence over titles. Come on, I'll walk with you."

"Uh," Jensen managed, and refrained from asking 'where to?' by the slimmest of margins. 

Luckily, or unluckily, Tahmoh clearly read his confusion, judging by his fondly exasperated head shake. "You forgot about the council meeting," he said. It wasn't a question.

Jensen groaned. "That's today? Didn't we just have one?"

"Three months ago," Tahmoh answered, looking amused by Jensen's chagrin. "Do your days really blend together so much?"

"I can't help being busy," Jensen retorted. He regretted it immediately: not the words so much as the tone. Too defensive. Like he had something to hide.

Tahmoh, thank the Trade Winds, misunderstood.

"I didn't mean to offend," he said, raising his hands in a peace offering.

"It's fine," Jensen said, feeling abruptly weary. "Let's just go."

He forced himself to walk with Tahmoh to the City Palace, trying not to think about the way that each step took him both closer to and further away from Jared.

  


The Tjalian High Council - which was comprised of fifteen representatives from the most important guilds and branches of governments - met four times a year to discuss the country's progress and deal with large issues that affected too many parts of the government to be addressed in the day-to-day management of Tjal. Jensen had his own chair around the massive stone table, between the Keeper of the Accounts and the Head of the Farmer's Guild, which he took with awkward nods at the other people at the table. He'd never get used to these meetings.

"Good morning everyone," Tahmoh said, once all the seats were full. "Let's begin. Our first order of business is the question of whether or not to close the northern border."

"What? Why?" Jensen blurted, before he could think better of it. He shrank back at the raised eyebrows his words prompted. "Uh, I mean…"

"Because of the Gol raiders currently overrunning Marral," Osric, Keeper of the Accounts, said from his place at Jensen's left. His brow creased in a frown. "Surely the temple has been hearing numerous petitions from those fleeing the carnage."

"Of course," Jensen said immediately, because he wasn't about to admit that he'd been listening even less to the petitions recently than he usually did. Especially when he wasn't able to explain why. "I, uh, assumed they were exaggerating, is all. Is it… really that bad?"

Tahmoh's grim expression made it clear that it was. "Tetak and Werak have both sent emissaries concerning the number of refugees that have been crossing the border; they don't have the resources to handle them all."

"Not to mention that they're getting antsy about being so close to the border in case the Gols set their sights on Tjal," Alona, Keeper of the Tradesmen, added.

People shared looks with their neighbours, and Jensen realized that the cities on the border weren't the only ones worried about attack.

"But surely it won't come to that," he said. "Our allies will help us if the Gol attempt to attack Tjal. Won't they?"

Tahmoh broke the silence that followed his words with a shuffle of his papers. "I believe you've just jumped to point five on our itinerary, Bird Keeper," he said, with a wryness that neatly smoothed the tension in the room. "As to your question, I have no doubt they will help us if we have need of their support, but let us settle the border issue first."

"Of course," Jensen said, and sat back in his chair, determined not to display his ignorance again.

The remainder of the meeting was tedious in the extreme. Jensen had very little to contribute, like usual, and he'd never been that interested in the management of the country. 

In his less charitable moments, Jensen wondered why they even bothered to include him; it wasn't as though his position as Keeper of the Birds had any practical connection to the ruling of the country. But the Keeper of the Birds had been a member of the council since the time of kings had ended, so Jensen mostly just kept his mouth shut and let other people make decisions.

Today, he tortured himself by wondering if any of the hallways he'd walked down today led to the door of Jared's cell.

Jared would have realized by now that Jensen wasn't coming. It made something sit uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach, thinking of Jared wondering what had been so important that Jensen had abandoned him today.

Osric nudged him with an elbow. "What's got you so distracted?" he asked in an undertone, while the Head of the Builder's Guild and Alona argued about the next planned expansion of the Market. "Normally you at least pretend to pay attention."

"I've just got a lot on my mind," Jensen whispered back.

Osric snorted. "Clearly. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were in love."

"What?" Jensen spluttered, just barely remembering to keep his voice down. "Of course not! Where would you even get an idea like that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Osric said, with characteristic snark. "Maybe all the sighing and staring wistfully into the distance?"

"I'm not," Jensen said, with all the firmness he could muster.

Osric just shrugged. "If you say so," he said, and returned his attention to the argument on the other side of the table.

Jensen tried without success to do the same, unexpectedly shaken by the brief conversation. Osric was imagining things. Him, in love? It was ridiculous. Impossible.

It would explain a lot, though.

Feeling suddenly faint, Jensen stared hard at the table, images of Jared flashing past his eyes. His graceful hands. The almost self-conscious curl of his smile. Those white eyes that Jensen had once found unsettling and now felt like he could lose himself in. 

_It's just attraction,_ Jensen told himself, but that couldn't explain how visiting Jared had become the highlight of his entire day, or why he'd reorganized his schedule to make sure that he could spend as much time with him as possible. Or the way his chest always felt warm in Jared's company, even as the rest of the body turned slowly numb in the cold.

Oh, Moya. What was he to do now?

Shouts erupted from all corners, and Jensen pulled himself out of his personal crisis to realize that Alona had just punched the Head of the Builder's Guild hard enough to have him swooning in his chair. Again. 

"Why do our meetings always seem to end this way?" Osric asked, almost conversationally.

"I have no idea," Jensen replied, and firmly shelved his emotions away for another time.

  


Jensen couldn’t help but be somewhat subdued when he went to see Jared the next day. Now that he'd had the reality shoved in his face, he couldn't help but notice just how often his gaze strayed to Jared's mouth, and how much his own hands itched to reach through the bars and touch as much of that pale skin as they could reach. Would Jared's skin be cold like marble? Would he shy away from Jensen's warmth? Which one of them would burn more at the contact?

"Jensen?" Jared's voice asked, and Moya, now Jensen was thinking about what a nice voice it was, how much he enjoyed listening to it. And that wasn't even a _new_ thought; he'd known for months that he could happily listen to Jared speak for hours.

"Sorry," he said, with a weak smile. "Just a little distracted, I guess. Did I tell you about our council meeting yesterday?"

"You did," Jared said, sounding amused. "But you can tell me again, if you like."

Jensen's heart skipped as he desperately tried not to read too much into Jared's easy acquiescence. Jensen was the only person who ever spoke to him, Jared had told him so. If Jensen had spent his entire life in a cage, he'd be desperate for any type of company he could get. Deeper feelings didn't come into it.

Happy fantasies aside, Jensen couldn't imagine that Jared felt the same way as he did. He had no reason to believe that Jared had any… interest in humans. Why would he? It was Jensen's race that was responsible for Jared's suffering, after all. 

And how could Jensen risk telling Jared? Any happiness that came from the unlikely event of Jared returning his feelings would be tempered by the reality that Jared was a prisoner, and Jensen was too much of a coward to do anything to change that. 

Besides, the most likely outcome was the both of them awkwardly trying to continue their friendship with the looming spectre of Jensen's overinvestment getting in the way. Or, even worse, Jared might think that giving in to Jensen's desires was a fair trade for not being alone. Just the idea made Jensen quail with guilt.

It wasn't worth it, Jensen decided, as he spun the tale of Alona's dramatic lunge across the table. Better just to keep quiet.

  


Walking back through the tunnels afterwards, Jensen got the sense that Loya was disappointed with him.

He'd long since figured out the route through the tunnels on his own, but Jensen couldn't say he minded the company today. His heart and his feet felt heavy as he faced the reality that all of his days might feel like this from now on.

"It's for the best," he said to her, earning himself a pitying shake of her head.

He'd be embarrassed that the ravens had figured out his heart before he did, but Jensen honestly couldn't find the energy for that right now.

"Well, what would you have me do?" he demanded. "There's no happy ending here, Loya"

"Kraa," she said sadly, and Jensen nodded. 

There was nothing more to be said, really.

  


"Where do you go when you're not here?" Jared asked one day.

It had been over a month since Jensen's unfortunate emotional epiphany, and he'd come to a certain amount of equanimity about the whole thing. So he wanted all sorts of things from - and for - Jared that he couldn't have; it was still better than not having his company at all.

Which wasn't to say that the sight of Jared smiling at him through the tumble of his hair wasn't quietly devastating, but Jensen was working on it.

"The rookery mostly," Jensen answered. "Or to the temple for petitions."

"Not to your house?" 

"Haven't got a house to go to, so no." 

Jared frowned. "Why? I thought... don't people usually live in houses?"

"Usually, but I'm the Keeper of the Birds," Jensen reminded him.

Jared didn't appear elucidated. "So?"

It was slightly shocking, to realize that Jared didn't know what that meant. It served as an unpleasant reminder of just how much he missed in his underground prison.

"The Keeper of the Birds lives in the rookery," Jensen explained, to avoid getting distracted by his maudlin thoughts. "Taking care of the sacred ravens is my duty and my life. There's not much room for anything else." _Except you_ he didn't add.

"So the Keeper of the Birds can't have a mate?" Jared asked, and Jensen was glad that his cheeks were already flushed with the cold so his blush wasn't too obvious.

"It's not forbidden, but I don't intend to marry," he said carefully, pleased when he didn't stumble over the words. "One of my cousin's children will take the position when I grow too old to care for them."

"So you don't have a home?"

Jensen shrugged. "The rookery is my home."

Jared made a thoughtful noise, then fell silent.

Jensen couldn't bear the quiet for long. "Why do you ask?"

"Hmm? Oh, I'd like to be able to picture where you are when you're not here." Something about the artless honesty of the question made Jensen's throat tighten. "Can you tell me what the rookery looks like?"

"Well the tower's made of sandstone, like most of the city, and it gleams a little bit when the light comes in. The rookery is meant to be a home for the sacred ravens, but we get visitors every now and then when other birds stop for somewhere to rest. Most of the time, though, it's just me and the ravens. 

"There are five windows, one for each of the sacred directions, with large shutters that can be pulled across when it's raining. There's hay everywhere, and bird droppings, no matter how often I clean it up. The ravens usually perch on the rafters to sleep." 

"Where do you sleep? In the hay?"

Jensen nearly laughed, before remembering just whom he was talking to. "Not usually," he said instead, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground a few inches in front of his feet to avoid the temptation to look at the pathetic pile of hay and blankets that served as Jared's own bed. "I have a room below the rookery. It's not much, but it's mine."

"And that makes you happy?"

"Well, it'd be nice to have a house instead," Jensen said, a little wistfully. "With painted walls and a stone path leading up to the door. A place just for me." 

It was an idle wish, if course. Jensen was the Keeper of the Birds and, as such, he'd stay in the rookery until he died. The same as his mother had and the Keeper before her and every Keeper all the way back. There was no idyllic little house waiting for him. 

"That doesn't seem-" Jared stiffened suddenly, voice trailing off. 

"Jared?" 

"You have to go," he said. "Now." 

"What? What did I say?" 

"Nothing." Jared looked at him. "Why aren't you moving?"

Jensen was at a loss. "Because you won't tell me why you're making me leave!"

Jared actually growled at him, a low guttural noise that was neither human nor animal. The hair on the back of Jensen's neck stood on end. 

"Can't you hear them?" Jared demanded. "Get up! You can't let them find you here!" 

"Them?" Jensen repeated, scrambling belatedly to his feet. "Who?" 

But Jared refused to answer. "Just go," he ordered. "Quickly!"

"I'll be back," Jensen promised, although Jared already knew that. He whistled for Salwar, who actually deigned to listen to him for once, and they both slipped back into the tunnels. 

The room plunged into sudden darkness while Jensen was rolling the stone back, and he faltered, unnerved by the change. Why would Jared put out his ice fire?

"Hurry!" Jared's voice barked out of the darkness, and Jensen hurriedly obeyed.

He'd hardly finished getting the stone in place when the grating sound of hinges echoed through the air, accompanied by the orange glow of ordinary firelight through the gap. It was only a faint gleam to begin with, though it grew steadily brighter as the seconds ticked by and Jensen didn't move to go.

Someone was lighting the lamps. But the guard who fed Jared never bothered with anything other than the taper he carried. What was going on?

Jensen jumped when an incomprehensible babble of voices filled the air, sudden and unexpected. He felt Salwar's head nudge against his leg, trying to convince him to move, but Jensen hesitated.

Jared had said that Jensen was the only person who ever spoke to him. But he had clearly known that these people - whoever they were - were coming. And the sensible part of Jensen's brain told him that Jared was entitled to keep secrets if he wanted to, but it couldn't even begin to compete with every other fiber of Jensen's being that was practically vibrating with the urge to know.

He was hidden here, from Jared and whomever those voices belonged to. He could stay and listen. It wouldn't do any harm. Jared didn't need to know.

Mind made up, Jensen dropped down to the floor, putting his face up close to the gap. It didn't help much. The cavern's acoustics distorted and amplified every sound. With a crowd of people instead, it was impossible for Jensen to make out any individual words. He could certainly recognize the tone of their voices, though. 

First horrified.

Then amazed.

Then mocking.

Stomach sinking, Jensen listened to them rain abuse on Jared, who made not a single sound of protest. He wanted to storm back in there and drive them away. He wanted to pray to Moya to free Jared from his prison, and damn the consequences. He wanted to see Jared's smile without shadows in it. He wanted…

He wanted to have left when Jared told him to.

Jensen didn't know how long he lay there, shaking with cold and fury. He wanted to weep with relief when the voices finally faded, the light getting dimmer one doused lantern at a time until there was only darkness left in the cavern. The door slammed shut with ominous finality.

The cavern stayed dark for a long time after they were gone.

Only when the now-familiar light of Jared's ice flames began to shine again did Jensen roll the stone back, hands shaking.

The look that Jared gave him when he stomped back into view - resigned, bleak and disappointed - only made things worse.

"What was that?" Jensen demanded, in a strangled voice he hardly recognized as his own. Jared picked at a loose thread on his trousers, and said nothing. "Answer me, Jared!"

"That," Jared said acidly, "was your Lord Keeper." He didn't look at Jensen.

"Tahmoh?" Jensen asked, startled. "No, he wouldn't."

Jared snorted. "So you believe me a liar?"

"That's not what I- no. No, if you say that's who it was then…" Jensen blew out an explosive breath. "Tahmoh? Really?"

Wordlessly, Jared nodded.

"And… the others?"

Jared's shrug was a boneless thing. "Foreign dignitaries from somewhere or other, I expect. It's not as though they ever introduce themselves."

"I…" The implication of Jared's words caught up to him. "What do you mean 'ever'? Jared, has this happened before?"

"Oh, many times." Jared's words were casual, but his voice was worrying flat. "I'm a spoil of war from one of the defining moments in this country's history. Of course people want to jeer at the captured monster."

"You're not a monster!"

Jared's eyes flew to him, almost startled, and Jensen absently realized that he was yelling. Not that he cared. It felt good to yell.

The words spilled out of him, curses and threats all wrapped up in shining, incandescent fury that anyone could treat Jared like that.

"I won't let him keep doing this," Jensen vowed, hands fisted at his sides as he paced in short, angry circles in front of Jared's cage. "I'll take on the whole council if I have to! They can't just-"

"It's because of my parents," Jared said, the unexpected words slicing through Jensen's righteous anger with the precision of a knife.

Jensen faltered, turning a quizzical look on Jared. "What?"

Jared's thin smile was a bleak thing. "You asked me once what I'm doing here. Why I didn't die with the rest of the khretha. It's because my parents were responsible for the war that nearly destroyed Tjal."

Jensen recoiled as if slapped. "What?"

"The other khretha helped, obviously," Jared continued, as though he wasn't talking about a winter that had lasted for three years and nearly killed every living thing in Tjal. "But it was their idea, their leadership."

Jensen's legs turned to water, and he sank unsteadily to the floor. "Jared…"

Jared seemed to have forgotten he was even there, his eyes staring blankly at something only he could see. "They locked all three of us in here, to begin with. Punishment, you see. I was only a child; I didn't know what was going on. You have no idea how frightened I was, Jensen. _None_. But at least I had my parents. It didn't matter if it was kings or lords or keepers bringing people down here to mock us in our defeat; it was all the same. But my parents did their best to protect me."

Jared's voice wobbled suddenly, his words turning thick and harsh.

"Until one day they took my parents away. And I was all alone. They didn't kill me because I'd done nothing wrong to deserve death, but they wouldn't let me go because they could never trust that I wasn't exactly like my parents. So now I'm their symbol of power, left to molder alone in the dark. Forever."

"Moya's light," Jensen breathed. Tears stung the corners of his eyes, cold enough to take his breath away.

"Sometimes I think I'd kill them all if I ever got out," Jared said almost dreamily. "Show them that they were right to fear the khretha." He chuckled without mirth and Jensen let out an involuntary whimper at the sound.

Those white eyes cut sharply towards him, and Jensen froze, struck by how profoundly inhuman Jared looked in this moment. After all these months, Jensen had forgotten the taste of fear.

"Would I be a monster then, Jensen?" Jared asked, ignorant of the cracking sound that Jensen's heart seemed to be making with every horrible word. "If I killed every last person in Tjal? Would you blame me if I did?"

"I- I have to go." Jensen stumbled to his feet, hands shifting aimlessly in front of him. "I-"

He had no words.

Jared said nothing, just watched as Jensen turned to go. 

Those eyes followed him across the cavern, and Jensen fancied they he could still feel their weight once he was safe in the hidden darkness of the tunnels, panting like he'd just run a league and feeling dangerously light-headed. That phantom gaze chased him all the way back to the temple, damning Jensen for his silence.

Because, honestly, he wasn't sure he would blame Jared at all.

  


Jensen didn't visit Jared the next day. Nor the day after. He couldn't.

The ravens chattered worriedly at him, but Jensen couldn't figure out how to reassure them.

"It's not forever," he settled on. "I just… need some space to think."

Because it was plain that he couldn't continue on like this. 

Jared didn't deserve what had been done to him. Jensen didn't think anyone could argue otherwise, not if they'd seen Jared with the ravens, witnessed the uncomplicated delight he got simply from not being alone. And Jensen knew that he wanted to make Jared happy. He just wasn't sure how.

Smuggling Jared out of his prison presented its own set of problems, not least because it would break Jensen's heart to watch him go. If he managed to escape, Jared would have to flee to another country, but Jensen could never leave Kerak. 

And after Jared's recent revelation, Jensen had to face the very real fear that freeing him would cause the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. Jensen was the Keeper of Kerak. His job was to serve the city and the ravens that protected it. How could he intentionally put all that in jeopardy?

"What do I do?" he asked the ravens, but of course they couldn't tell him, even if they could have spoken.

He'd been right before. There was no way for this to end well.

Jensen stroked despondent fingers down Onnes' neck. "I wish you'd never led me to him," he said sadly. He wondered which of them he was trying to convince.

Footsteps pounded suddenly through the rookery, and Jensen got to his feet just in time to see one of the acolytes burst into the rookery.

"Bird Keeper!" the acolyte said. "Thank Moya you're here."

"What is it?" Jensen asked, which he figured was a better way to phrase it than 'what in Moya's name are you doing here'. 

The acolyte bowed low. "The high priest humbly asks that the sacred ravens might be brought to the temple so that petitions can begin early."

Jensen frowned. "Early? Why?"

"To accommodate the increased number of petitioners," the acolyte said, in a tone of voice that suggested he thought Jensen should already know this.

"Increased-?" Turning towards the window that faced the temple, Jensen was shocked to see the huge crowd of people gathering around the main doors. It was the biggest crowd he'd ever seen in all of his years as Keeper.

"Bird Keeper?" the acolyte ventured, and Jensen started slightly.

"Of course. Yes. We'll be right there."

  


For once, Jensen actually listened to all of the petitions. It took hours. By the end of it, he was pale and shaking with numb shock. Was this what had been happening in the world while he was falling in love with Jared?

Gol raiders had overrun Glyn. And Marral. And Sumae. 

And Tjal was next. 

One of the priests cornered Jensen once the last of the petitioners was gone. "Many people are fleeing south," he said in a low voice. "Including several of the acolytes. You might consider joining them."

"What?" Jensen said blankly. "I can't do that. My place is here."

The priest smiled sadly. "Then may Divine Moya guide both of our souls with her divine wind. For I fear that there is little in this earthly world that can stop this turn of fate."

  


The next morning, Jensen sat on the windowsill with bleary eyes and watched the endless line of caravans escaping the city. He'd gone into the Market at morning light and found Misha hurriedly packing up his stall. He'd not been the only one.

"Have you been living under a rock?" Misha had demanded, when Jensen asked him what he was doing. "The Gols are going to raze Kerak to the ground. And I'm not planning to be here when they do it." 

Jensen had had nothing to say to that, so he'd simply nodded and left Misha to his preparations. On the way back, he'd come across the city guardsmen doing drills in the town square. Their faces had worn a mixture of terror and resigned determination, and Jensen had known, as they themselves did, that infantrymen would be no match for the mounted raiders and their honed battle tactics. The only thing waiting for any of them was death. Jensen included.

So he'd gone and hidden in the rookery, where the only person who had to deal with his fear was himself. This year, it seemed, was dedicated to reminding Jensen how useless he was. 

"Guess I might as well free Jared, after all," he said to the ravens, who were mostly ignoring him. "If we're all going to die anyway. Maybe he'll take out some of the Gols in the process of getting his revenge on the rest of us."

Wait.

Jensen's thoughts ground to a halt. He ran through that sentence once more, something disturbingly like hope bubbling up in his chest.

Maybe there _was_ something he could do, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

_Eventually, he told his new friend about his parents, whom he missed very much. They had done bad things, he explained, and had to be locked up to stop them. And the people had locked him up too, because they were afraid that he would hurt people too, if he got out. And so here he was, locked up forever. A monster in a cage._

_What happens to a story, I wonder, when the monster is the one being punished?_

_It might have stayed like that forever, with the boys locked up and his friend visiting when he could, if not for the fact that birds are experts at fixing injustices like this._

_So the birds set up a test for the boy, and for the people who locked him up. Could they show compassion for each other? Could they stop being afraid of each other? Could they forgive what had happened in the past and remember how to care again?_

"Jensen," Jared said, when he came to a stop in front of the bars. Jared looked smaller, diminished by the guilt that was sitting obviously and uneasily on his shoulders. "I'm glad you came back. I didn't mean t-"

"There's an army coming," Jensen interrupted him, and tried not to notice the way Jared's face fell. "Gol Raiders. They're going to destroy Kerak."

Jared's lip curled. "You came here to tell me that?" 

"If I got you out of here," Jensen said, and suddenly had the full focus of Jared's attention. "Would you be able to stop them?"

Silence.

"Would you?" Jensen asked again.

"Why would I?" Jared demanded. "An invasion is no more than this city deserves." 

"I know you don't owe Tjal anything."

"Then why ask?" 

"Because this is my home. And, though you've never been given the chance to see it, it's a good one." Jensen raked a hand through his hair, betraying his own nervousness. "More than that, a lot of good people are going to die if the Gols attack. I don't know what it was like when you were first captured, but the people who live here right now aren't your enemy. Most of them don't even know you're here." 

"Then perhaps they should be blamed for being ignorant of their own crimes," Jared snapped.

"Including me?" Jensen asked, and Jared's expression flickered. "I didn't know you were here either, and I live practically on top of you. Should I be killed by the Gols as penance?" 

"No," Jared said roughly. "Not you. You're... my friend." 

"Those people shouldn't be punished either," Jensen said, ignoring the ridiculous way his heart was fluttering at Jared's admission. He put every ounce of sincerity he possessed into his words. "It's the same as you being locked up for your parents' crimes. Don't you want to be better than the people who imprisoned you?" 

"You're trying to manipulate me," Jared accused. 

"I'm trying to convince you," Jensen corrected. "There's a difference." 

"Looks the same from this side of the bars." 

Jensen sighed. "I'm asking for your help as my friend. No one else can do this. Just you."

Jared looked at him for a long moment. "If I refuse," he said slowly. "I assume that I'm to remain here and share in the city's fate?" 

Jensen took a deep breath. "No. Even if they destroy every other good thing in my life, they're not going near you. No matter what you decide, I'm going to get you out of here." 

Jared's sucked in a sharp breath. "You wouldn't," he said, so softly that Jensen barely heard it.

"What?" he asked, assuming he'd misunderstood.

"You wouldn't." Jared raised his chin, challenge written in every line of his body. "The Jensen I know wouldn't do this."

Jensen flinched. "Well, maybe I'm trying to be a better Jensen than the one you know!"

"How can I believe that? I told you that I wanted to kill those cursed keepers of yours after _years_ of punishment, and you fled in terror!" Jared's voice ricocheted off the walls, full of pain and confusion. "Why would you even consider helping me after that?"

"Because you deserve to be free." Jensen said, with what he thought was admirable steadiness. "And you're my friend, so I trust you."

Jared deflated all at once. "That's not fair," he said, in a small, lost voice.

"I'm not trying to be fair. I'm trying to help. I mean, I'd be lying if I said I'm not hoping you'll help us in return, but I'm not going to stop you if you decide to go." He offered Jared a wan smile. "And if you decide to drown Kerak in snow, at least it'll probably be a faster death than the-"

"Don't." Jared was up against the bars before Jensen had realized he'd moved, only the faintest sliver of space between him and the silver bars. His eyes burned with emotions that Jensen couldn't read. "Just, don't."

Biting his lip, Jensen nodded. 

"You're not allowed to die," Jared said, at once a threat and a plea. He took a deep breath. "I'll help you stop the attack."

Jensen beamed at him. "Really?" 

Jared nodded. "But after…" His expression wavered for a moment before his jaw firmed. "I'm leaving Tjal. You're coming with me."

Jensen suspected that Jared hadn't intended that to sound like a question.

"Every step of the way," he agreed, and tried not to think too hard about how Jared would react when he learned the truth.

The two of them considered and discarded a number of ideas for how to break Jared out of his prison, before finally settling on a plan that seemed workable. Much as Jensen would have preferred to free Jared right then and there, he knew that they needed to plan more carefully than that. They'd only have one chance at this.

Jensen found himself torn between nervous excitement and dread as he wished Jared goodbye, knowing that - for better or worse - it was the last time he'd do it. His mind buzzed with a dozen things he needed to do before they staged their jailbreak as he made his way back to the rookery. Once there, he gave the ravens a brief rundown of the plan.

"I think it'll work," he told them. "As long as things go right."

Of course, things never seemed to go as Jensen planned.

"Jensen!" Tahmoh's voice echoed up the stairs, and Jensen just barely managed to shove the travel bag he was packing for Jared out of sight before Tahmoh appeared at the top of the stairs.

Something inside Jensen's chest went cold at the sight of him.

"Lord Keeper," he said coolly. "It's rare to get a visit from you."

"We're organizing a caravan to transport the ravens to the southern border city of Tanak," Tahmoh said without preamble.

"We're abandoning Kerak?" Jensen asked, stunned.

"Not permanently," Tahmoh promised, which sounded like a 'yes' to Jensen. "Help from Yous is coming. And the city guardsmen are preparing to defend the city. But we can't risk the Gols getting a chance to harm the sacred ravens. So we're moving them - and you - as a precaution."

The urge to demand what they were planning on doing with the khretha in the basement was hot on his tongue, but Jensen bit back the words. 

"Makes sense," he said instead. "When is this happening?"

"First light tomorrow. Our scouts say that the Gols are still two days' journey away from Kerak, so that should give us more than enough of a lead."

"Understood," Jensen said.

Tahmoh peered at him. "Is something wrong? You don't seem yourself."

Jensen scrubbed a hand over his face. "Just nervous," he said, and dimly reflected that he was getting better at lying; that had sounded almost genuine. "You know I've never left Kerak before."

"We'll be back before you know it," Tahmoh promised. Jensen had to wonder which of them he was lying to. "The guardsmen will be here after the evening meal to help you get the sacred ravens prepared for travel."

More than done with this conversation, Jensen simply nodded and mouthed the necessary platitudes to get Tahmoh out of the rookery so he could think.

"They're coming to pack you up in cages this afternoon," he told the ravens, who were crowded together on one of the windowsills for reasons Jensen couldn't even begin to fathom. "And I can't break Jared out if I'm supposed to be taking care of you lot. Any ideas?"

Immediately, the ravens launched themselves out the window and set off in different directions. Jensen watched them go for a moment, hands on his hips.

"Huh," he said thoughtfully. "That'll do it."

Really, Jensen was about ready to start letting them make all the plans; things clearly worked out better that way.

Jensen finished packing the travel bag, bought some important supplies in the rapidly-emptying Market, stowed his purchases in the temple storeroom, and then went to Aldis, the Captain of the Guardsmen, in a panic.

"They're gone!" he gasped, doing his best to sound properly panicked. Judging by the expression on Aldis' face, he did a pretty good job. "The sacred ravens! They've all flown off; I-I think they know the Gols are coming!"

The guardsmen sprang into immediate action, and Jensen felt a little bit guilty about the worry and fear he saw scrawled across their faces. They probably saw this as an omen, a sign that Moya had abandoned them all to their fate. Hopefully, this deception now would avoid making that true in the long run.

Jensen was helpfully unhelpful in the search for the first half hour or so, then, when everyone was too caught up and spread thin to know where he was, he slipped away back to the temple. Most of the remaining acolytes were in prayer - praying for the return of the ravens and the safety of the city - so it wasn't difficult for Jensen to sneak into the storeroom unobserved. Then it was a matter of collecting his supplies and making his way through the familiar tunnels, his heart pounding double time.

"What's going on?" Jared asked, when Jensen burst into the cavern, toting a large saw awkwardly in one hand. "I thought we were waiting until the Gols got closer to the city." 

"Change of plan." Jensen threw himself to his knees in front of the bars. "The Lord Keeper is planning on transporting the ravens to Tanak in the morning and me along with them; we can't afford to wait."

"Where are the ravens now?" Jared said, coming up to mirror Jensen's position on the other side of the bars.

"Leading the city guardsmen on a merry chase the last I checked." Jensen brandished the saw with a flourish. "Which should give us the time to use _this_ to get you out before anyone comes back."

Jared was eyeing the saw uncertainly. "Are you sure that's going to do the job?"

"The merchant I bought it from swears it will, which is good enough for me. You want to help? I've got no doubt that the ravens can outwit the guardsmen for literal days if they put their minds to it, but I'd rather not risk it."

That shut Jared up, and between the two of them, they managed to figure out how best to position the sawblade. 

It was slow going. The silver bars were thicker than Jensen's wrist, and they needed to remove the bottom third of two of them to have enough space for Jared to squeeze through. Jensen felt every minute stretch out like taffy, sweat trickling down the back of his neck. Every whisper of sound made him fear that someone was coming, that they'd been caught. Moya herself couldn't save them if that happened.

Finally, they finished. The second bar hit the floor with a dull chiming sound that had Jensen wincing, and the next moment Jared was standing in front of him. They were face to face without bars between them for the first time.

Looking up at the cautious hope brightening Jared's face, Jensen wanted nothing more than to pull him down and taste that smile. 

He swallowed hard, shoving the impulse aside. "Let's go," he said. He left the saw where it fell; let the guardsmen wonder where it had come from.

Jared nodded and fell wordlessly into step. Jensen saw him shiver when he edged out of the cavern and into the tunnels, but didn't comment.

"Want to do the honours?" he asked instead, gesturing at the stone.

"I do." 

Jared shifted the stone with much more ease than Jensen had ever managed, and didn't stop rolling until the gap was completely closed. A wave of his hand had ice spreading in thick veins over the rock face, sealing it tight.

"That should keep them out of the tunnels," Jared said, as Jensen bent to relight his lantern. He grinned, a surprisingly boyish expression. "How confused do you think they're going to be?"

"I don't think 'confused' is even going to begin to cover it. You ready to go?"

"Yes," Jared said fervently, and gestured for Jensen to lead the way. He fell in step at Jensen's side, almost closely enough for their arms to brush.

Jensen spent the entire trip through the tunnels wondering how cold Jared's hand would be if he took it in his own.

Back in the storeroom, Jensen discarded the lantern and pulled out the pack he'd made for Jared. 

"Only one?" Jared asked, when Jensen had been hoping he wouldn't.

"It's everything we need," Jensen evaded. "Come on."

The temple seemed even more deserted than usual. Jensen had to wonder if the acolytes were still praying or if they'd joined the search for the ravens. He hoped that they'd managed to avoid capture without causing too much grief.

They emerged into darkness, night having fallen sometime while they'd been busy sawing through the bars. Jensen estimated that they had only a few hours till dawn.

He was going to be so much trouble when Tahmoh and the guardsmen finally caught up with him.

"This way," Jensen whispered, terrified that someone was going to see them, silhouetted against the fires burning in the temple. He couldn't afford to get caught until Jared was safely away.

He only went a few steps before realizing that Jared wasn't following. Turning back, he found Jared standing stock still on the grass, his head tipped up to the sky. It was hard to tell in the intermittent light from the torches, but Jensen thought he might be smiling.

"Jared?" he whispered.

"I can see the stars," Jared answered, sounding so much like an awestruck child that Jensen had to bite his lip hard to keep a choked sob from escaping. His head swiveled back to the world with obvious reluctance, yet there was nothing reluctant in his tone when he breathed, " _Thank you_ , Jensen."

"You'll get to look at them every night from now on," Jensen promised, hoping it was true. "But right now we have to stop the Gols."

Jared stared at him for a long moment, and Jensen tried not to hold his breath. 

"Or you could go," he added, in a voice that was smaller than he'd meant it to be. _And take me with you,_ he didn't - couldn't - say. It wouldn't be fair to either of them.

He watched as Jared looked at the sleeping city, mostly dark now and defenseless against the approaching might of the Gols. Or against Jared's wrath.

Jared's breath escaped in one long, slow breath, and he turned his back on the city. "Lead the way."

Jensen nearly collapsed with relief. "Uh," he fumbled. "Right. Come on."

He angled their path so that it would intersect with the caravan trail that crossed Koran Field. If the Gols were coming from the Marral border, then they'd attack from this direction. It was risky to have Jared walk along the caravan trail instead of wading through the knee-deep grass in the field, but Jensen doubted that there'd be many other travelers moving _towards_ the invading army.

The sky had already begun to lighten by the time they reached the caravan route, and Jensen felt his nerves, which had begun to ease the further away they got from the city, creep back. He felt more than saw Jared taking in the wide, well-beaten road.

"That way, I assume?" Jared said, that unexpected sense of humour rearing its head again. 

Something in Jensen's face must have betrayed him though, because Jared's shy little smile fell off his face.

"Jensen? What's wrong?"

Shaking his head, Jensen pasted on a smile as he pulled the pack off his back and handed it over. Jared took it automatically, his eyes gleaming brilliantly white in the dim as they scoured Jensen's face.

"According to Tahmoh's reports, they're about two days away," Jensen said, doing his best to sound calm. "I'll run interference long enough to make sure you get away safely."

"What are you talking about?" Jared loomed into Jensen's personal space, and Jensen flinched. "You're coming with me."

Heart in his throat, Jensen took a step back. "I can't." 

"But," Jared stared at him. Even in the gloom, Jensen could see the betrayed look on his face. "You promised!"

Jensen's hands fisted at his sides. "I'm the Bird Keeper," he said, hating the wobble in his voice. "This is where I belong. I have to stay."

"No," Jared snarled, and seized Jensen's wrist in an iron grip that burned cold against his skin. "You don't get to do this. I won't let you."

"Jar-ah!" Jensen's breath escaped in a startled exhale as Jared started walking, dragging Jensen behind him. "Jared!" he hissed, afraid to struggle too much when Jared was acting like this. "Jared, stop! I can't!"

"Yes, you can." Jared marched down the caravan trail with single-minded intensity. His grip on Jensen's wrist didn't slacken for a moment. "You're willing to leave when your Lord Keeper sends you away, so _don't_ tell me that you can't leave Kerak. It's a lie."

"That's not…" Jensen stumbled over a rock, and Jared hauled him back on his feet without slowing. "The ravens, Jared!"

Jared snorted. "They'll find you. You could be at the bottom of the ocean and they'd still find you. They'll know you're with me."

And Jensen wanted to keep arguing, but the tense line of Jared's shoulders made it clear that it wasn't going to do much good. The way his pulse was hammering under Jared's icy fingers made it clear that he didn't really want Jared to let go, either.

So he tripped silently down the road in Jared's wake, mind whirling with the implications of the situation he'd put himself in. The cloak and boots that he'd forgotten to take off were far too hot for the weather, to say nothing of the exercise, so it wasn't long before Jensen was sweating liberally. The sky grew steadily brighter, and Jensen couldn't help glancing back over his shoulder at Kerak, watching it disappear behind the rolling hills and wondering if he'd ever see his home again.

Suddenly, Jared stopped, so suddenly that Jensen nearly walked into him.

"Jared, wha-"

Jared cut him off with a sharp slash of his arm. "Look," he said, gesturing ahead of them.

At first, Jensen couldn't make sense of what he was seeing. Darkly stained tents spread out like a village along the side of the caravan trail, faint trails of smoke eddying towards the pink sky. A massive herd of horses was corralled next to the tents, more than Jensen had ever seen in his entire life put together.

Jensen's blood went cold. 

The Gols were already here.

"Oh, Moya," Jensen breathed. Hearing about the raiders and seeing them for himself were nowhere near the same thing. How could they withstand a force like that? There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and Jensen felt, he felt-

"Jensen!" Jared snapped, and Jensen blinked at him, sure that his devastation was written large across his face.

"Oh, Jared, what are we going to do?"

In the ever-brightening light, Jensen could see the grim determination firming the line of Jared's jaw. 

"This," Jared said, and let go of Jensen's arm. He stepped forward, planting himself squarely in the middle of the path.

"But there are so many!" Jensen protested. "And you've been trapped for so long. Are you sure you can-"

"Jensen," he said again, but gently this time. "You've had more faith in me than I deserve. Believe in me just a little further."

And then Jared closed his eyes. His breath ghosted out slowly, and he went stone-still.

For long moments, nothing happened. Jensen listened to the wind blowing over the plains, the slow increase of noise coming from the Gol camp that suggested they were waking up, and wondered if he was about to die. He clenched his fists to resist the urge to panic, feeling like he was about to shake apart with nerves. 

Then he noticed that he could see his breath.

The temperature dropped sharply, sending Jensen from sweating to shivering in mere moments. Ice began to gather on the grass at his feet, limning everything in white frost. The rising sun was blocked out by sudden, dark clouds. 

Jared took a deep, cleansing breath. Then he made a single, sharp gesture and the storm erupted.

Snow exploded through the air, building into a swirling maelstrom faster than Jensen's eyes could follow. It was nothing like the dusting of snow that blanketed Jared's cell. This snow fell fast and fiercely, swallowing up the grass and the Gol camp with ruthless efficiency.

Jensen could hear shouts of alarm from the camp, and he watched as figures began rushing to and fro. The screams of the horses played a sinister counterpart to the wind whipping in his ears.

Somewhere between awestruck and sickened, Jensen turned his eyes away from the havoc of the storm. "Are you-" he started to ask, the wind snatching the words right off his lips before they could reach his ears. Not that it mattered when the rest of the sentence got stuck in his throat as he turned to face Jared full-on.

Jared's eyes were still closed, and he was as unaware of Jensen's scrutiny as he was the terror of the army that he was destroying simply because Jensen had asked him to. Not that it made much difference; Jensen couldn't have kept himself from staring even if Jared had been looking straight back.

How could he have thought that Jared was beautiful before? He'd seen him caged, diminished, a mere shadow of his true self. 

Here, in the middle of the howling storm being woven by those graceful hands, Jensen realized that he'd been a fool. This was what Jared was truly like, what he'd always been meant to be. 

Jensen watched, enraptured. Jared's pale skin practically glowed with power, and his mouth curled into an expression of pure delight. The wind whipped his hair around his face and across his shoulders in cascading ripples, as wild as the storm itself. 

In that moment, Jensen knew that he would move the world itself to save Jared from spending another second in that cell. 

Something glinted in Jensen's peripheral vision, a glimmer where there shouldn't have been any such thing. With difficulty, he tore his eyes away from Jared to see what it was.

It was the entire force of the city guardsmen, assembled on the field not two hundred paces behind them, knee deep and shivering in the snow. Jensen was too far away to hear a word they were saying, but he could recognize the fear painted on every face. He wasn't the only one who'd grown up with fearsome stories of the khretha, after all.

"He's helping!" Jensen yelled, but the wind stole the words away.

The storm slackened suddenly, the wind dropping fast enough that it made Jensen's ears ring in the sudden silence.

A sharp glance back at Jared revealed him doubled over with his hands on his knees, panting heavily.

"Jared!" Jensen exclaimed. He hovered, not sure whether or not to touch. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Jared gritted, raising his hands again. His fingers were shaking.

Desperately, Jensen looked back at the Gol camp. It was in shambles, but enough of the men had made it to their horses that they'd be in big trouble if they came this way instead of retreating.

"Stay behind me," Jared ordered, and made to raise the storm again.

Later, Jensen wouldn't be able to recall what it was that made him turn, away from Jared and the Gol army, at just the right moment. All he'd be able to remember was the way the archer's eyes were trained on Jared's back, the way the arrow was a black blot on the white landscape when he let it fly.

"Look out!" Jensen shouted, already lunging. 

Jared was slow to turn. His eyes met Jensen's at the same instant that the arrow found its mark in the middle of Jensen's back.

Jensen's breath escaped in a single, punched-out gasp. 

It hurt more than he'd have expected. He hadn't known that anything could hurt so much. 

The fierce combination of fatigue and elation on Jared's face turned to puzzlement as Jensen's knees buckled, then swiftly to horror. 

"Jensen!" 

Jensen coughed out blood when he tried to say Jared's name. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the snow, Jensen managed a weak smile into Jared's frantic face before the world went black. 

_Well done, youngling,_ a chorus of flapping voices said in the darkness, everywhere and nowhere at once. _We knew we could count on you._  

Jensen wasn't cold. 

He was used to being cold, these days. His thicker clothing could only do so much, and recently it had begun to seem that he carried that chill with him everywhere, whether he was with Jared or not. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but he had decided that a little discomfort was a small price to pay for having Jared as a friend. 

But he wasn't cold now. Strange.

He was lying on his back, Jensen realized muzzily, cradled against something solid. Steel bands were wrapped around his chest and his shoulders, keeping him still and close. Someone nearby was crying. 

Though he felt as weak as a freshly hatched chick, Jensen willed his eyes to open. 

His first impression was of light, so dazzling he could scarcely look at it. As his eyes adjusted, Jensen drew in a sharp breath. 

It was Jared who was holding onto him, his long hair falling to shield his face and tickling at Jensen's cheek. 

For once, though, it wasn't Jared that had captured his attention. Jared had... entombed them in a huge pillar of glistening ice that looked like flames licking up towards the sky. Sunlight refracted off every angle and edge, making the structure sparkle with every colour of the rainbow, constantly shifting. Jensen felt unexpectedly safe, tucked neatly inside the ice's careful embrace and sprawled across Jared's lap. 

Somewhere, distantly, Jensen felt a steady shudder in the ice. He wondered if it was his heart, trying to remember how to beat in the face of such awesome wonder.

"Pretty," he managed, which was woefully inadequate. He'd never seen anything so radiant in all his life. 

Jared's head jerked up at the sound of Jensen's voice, and Jensen was shocked to see twin trails of tears frozen on Jared's cheeks. More tears glistened in the corners of his eyes, which were glassy with anguish. 

"Why're you crying?" Jensen asked him. "Are you okay?" 

Jared's hands tightened their already too-tight grip, and Jensen frowned when he felt something long and thin against his side. Laboriously, he rolled his head to the side and caught sight of the shaft of an arrow, the wood stained dark with blood and gore.

The memory of the soldier with his bow hit Jensen like a catapult. "Did he hit you? Oh, Moya, I'm so sorry! I should never have -" 

"You died." Jared's voice trembled. As Jensen watched, more tears spilled over and joined the icy mess on Jared's cheeks. "That arrow was meant for me, but you got in the way. You can't do that. I won't allow it." 

"Jared-"

"I've lived an empty life. I've been caged and ridiculed and hated for more years than your species can fathom, but I would rather spend the rest of my life in that cage than live a life without you in it." 

And the only possible response that Jensen could think of for that was to fist a hand in Jared's hair and pull him down into a kiss that said everything his words couldn't. 

When Jensen had daydreamed about kissing Jared, he'd wondered how long he'd be able to withstand the temperature. Jared had told him that his body was cold all the way through, and Jensen had been sure that kissing Jared would be like sticking his face in Jared's ice fire. 

This was nothing like that. Granted, it wasn't the molten heat he was used to when kissing humans, but it wasn't cold, either. In fact, Jared seemed to be about the same temperature as the air which, come to think of it, should probably have felt colder too. 

Not that Jensen cared much about that right now. 

They kissed until Jensen was dizzy from lack of breath, the trembling of his fingers no longer simply a reaction to the shock of finally getting to do this. Then Jared tore himself away, chest heaving, and Jensen whimpered at the loss.

"Why aren't you dead?" Jared asked, between panting breaths. His hands felt overwhelmingly large against Jensen's face, his entire body cocooning Jensen's. "I saw the spark leave your eyes."

Jensen had no idea and would have said so, if a voice hadn't chosen that moment to interrupt.

"We saved him."

Startled, Jensen jerked upright, nearly braining the both of them when Jared barely got out of the way in time.

"What?" he demanded, and was surprised to see the ravens standing around them. "When did you get here? And since when can you talk?"

"Actually, the question is 'since when can you hear?'," Benevol said, in what was at once his normal throaty call and perfectly legible speech.

"You saved him?" Jared asked, before Jensen could pursue the issue of talking further. "Why? How?"

Pati's head tilted. "Because he passed the test. He has earned his reward. You both have."

Jensen thought he ought to feel more shocked by this turn of events than he did. "How did you bring me back to life? I mean, you're…" 

"They're not just ravens," Jared cut in. "They never have been. Surely you must know that ravens don't live so long, if nothing else."

Why had that never occurred to him? There was something strange about this entire situation.

"So." Jensen's brow furrowed. "You really are the emissaries of Moya?"

Salwar croaked out a laugh. "Humans _are_ a foolish species. Why do you assume that the gods are shaped like you?"

"Moya is a human invention," Loya supplied, while Jensen stared, open-mouthed. "But we still appreciated your prayers, even if they weren't directed quite the right way."

"What did you do to him?" Jared, it seemed, was not to be distracted. "He feels… different."

"A gift to both of you," Onnes said. "Humans are too short-lived. This is better." 

"Jensen is one of the undying," Benevol filled in, when it looked like Jared might start flinging ice at the lot of them.

Jared's breath sucked in sharply. Jensen looked up at him. "I'm assuming that's pretty much what it sounds like?"

Jared nodded, looking nearly as shocked by this revelation as he had been by Jensen's revival.

"You're welcome," Salwar said, sounding supremely pleased with himself.

"Wait," Jensen said, remembering suddenly. "What happened to the Gols?"

"Dead or fled," Jared answered. The flicker of a brutal smile crossed his lips. "I doubt they'll be back."

Jensen ran a thumb over Jared's cheek, brushing away the frozen tears. "Thank you for that. And the guardsmen?"

Jared scowled.

"If you weren't so distracted, you'd have noticed them by now," Pati said.

Jensen blinked, puzzled, before he realized that the thrumming that he'd taken for his own heartbeat was still there. He craned his neck and realized that it was the guardsmen, trying to break through the ice crystal Jared had sealed them inside. 

He glanced at Jared. "Should we talk to them?" 

Jared's answering expression was bleak. "They killed you." 

"Not on purpose." Jensen glanced at the ravens. "And I don't think they'll try again when the sacred ravens are in the way."

"Sneaky," Salwar approved. "I like it."

"We can't stay in here forever," Jensen observed, when Jared looked ready to object. "Let's just get it over with."

Jared's grip tightened. "You're not going with them."

Jensen hesitated. "Jared…" 

" _Jensen_." Jared looked him dead in the eyes, his face implacable. "If you stay, then so do I."

"No!" Jensen struggled to escape Jared's grip, not wanting to have this conversation lying down. Jared didn't yield an inch. "Jared, you can't!"

"This is touching but pointless," Salwar said.

"But… it's because of you I can't go!" Jensen protested, feeling strangely betrayed. "I'm Kerak's Keeper of the Birds! I need to be here!"

"Only for so long as we choose to remain in Tjal," Pati put in, and Jensen froze.

"You… you would abandon Tjal?" he asked, aghast. 

"That rather depends on what happens next." Benevol hopped up onto Jensen's chest, his beady eyes calm. "Talk to them. Do your best. We'll see to the rest."

Jensen wasn't really sure what his best was supposed to be, but he vowed to try nonetheless. He glanced up. "Jared?"

Jared's mouth thinned, but he nodded.

And Jensen still didn't quite trust him not to freeze the entire city guard where they stood, but he still let Jared pull him to his feet. The ravens flocked around them, so close that even the most talented archer wouldn't have dared to take a shot.

Thus fortified, Jensen nodded at Jared, who melted the ice with a wave of his hand.

The guardsmen who'd been chipping away at the thick ice jumped back with almost comical fear as the whole thing dissolved abruptly into a very large puddle, revealing Jared, Jensen and all five ravens. Whispers spread immediately through the ranks, and Jensen saw more than a few soldiers fingering their weapons nervously.

 _Do my best_ , he reminded himself, and squared his shoulders.

"I'm Jensen, Kerak's Keeper of the Birds," he said, to the assembled crowd of stunned guardsmen. He gestured at Jared. "This is Jared. He's a khretha that has been imprisoned beneath the City Palace since the Last Winter, even though he was too young to take part. He also just destroyed the Gol army to save our city. I hope no one's planning on taking another shot."

Uneasy silence followed Jensen's words. 

"Jensen," a voice said, and Jensen turned to find Tahmoh and several of the other keepers amongst the guardsmen. They definitely hadn't been there before Jensen had been shot; someone must have sent word to the city and brought them running. How long had he been dead before the ravens brought him back? How long had Jared been holding him like that?

Jensen's hand found Jared's and held on tight. 

"My Lord Keeper," Jensen said, since Jared seemed to be in no hurry to chime in. "I imagine you're not very happy with me right now."

"Happy's not the word I would use, no." Tahmoh's eyes kept flicking towards Jared, uneasiness obvious in his gaze. "Will you step away from it?"

"Him," Jensen corrected sharply. "And no. Not when you're just going to try and lock him up again."

"Jensen," Tahmoh started, in a placating tone of voice that set Jensen's teeth on edge.

He gave Tahmoh a narrow-eyed look. "Have you forgotten my title, _Lord Keeper_? I am the Keeper of the Birds, like my ancestors before me, and I sit on the Kerak High Council. Is there a reason that you no longer believe me worthy of your respect?"

Tahmoh, to his surprised delight, appeared flustered by that. "Not at all, Bird Keeper, I meant no disrespect. I just fear this… monster has affected you."

"This _monster_ ," Jensen said, scathing disdain dripping from every syllable. "Just saved all of our lives. Look at that!" He flung a hand out towards the snow-laden remains of the Gol camp. "He could have destroyed us all, yet he chose to help, despite the way he's been treated at our hands. Does that sound like a monster to you?"

The muttering started up again, louder this time.

"What would you have us do?" Tahmoh asked, after a lengthy silence.

"Saying thank you would be a good start," Jensen snapped, and dimly heard Jared swallow a laugh. 

The ravens showed no such restraint, and several guardsmen jumped at their amused crowing.

Indecision twisted Tahmoh's face, and he turned to speak in an undertone to the other keepers who were crowded around him.

Jensen glanced at Jared. "Guess I'm out of the club," he said, hoping his wry tone would cover the faint melancholy he felt at the thought.

Jared just squeezed his hand.

It didn't take long for the keepers to come to a decision. Jensen didn't bother holding his breath; the uncomfortable, self-righteous expressions on all their faces made it clear what the answer would be.

"It's not that we're not grateful," Tahmoh said, in the slow, creeping manner he used when he was searching for the right words. "But you can't ask the people of Kerak to accept a khretha. We've spent too long fearing them." He looked at Jensen with a face that begged his understanding. "You can see that, can't you?"

"Then we'll leave," Jared decided, the first thing he'd said since emerging from the ice. Jensen watched several men flinch away at the sound of his voice. "We'll leave Tjal and settle far from here. You'll never hear from us again."

Tahmoh and the other keepers started whispering again.

"Us?" Jensen asked in an undertone.

Jared's grip on his hand firmed. "Even if I have to knock you out and drag you away."

"Well that's charming."

"There's no need for you to harm our keeper," Loya said, flapping her way up to Jensen's arm. "By turning you away, the kingdom of Tjal has forsaken our protection. Lead and we shall follow."

And it was no more than Jensen had expected, but he couldn't help but flinch.

"Hush," Loya said, nuzzling against the side of his face. "It's not your fault. You'll be much happier where we're going."

There wasn't much Jensen could say to that.

"Well then," he settled on finally. "Shall we?"

In answer, Jared let go of Jensen's hand to slide an arm around his waist and turned them both towards the caravan trail, the ravens still acting a deterrent to any possible attack.

"Wait!" Tahmoh cried, and Jensen turned back, despite Jared's hand urging him to keep walking. "If you go, you're no longer Keeper of the Birds. You must leave the sacred ravens here."

Jensen laughed. "You think it's my choice? If the sacred ravens want to stay, that's up to them."

"Not likely," Benevol muttered.

"And I doubt that trying to keep them here by force is going to work very well."

From the twisted expression on Tahmoh's face, Jensen got the impression that they were willing to try anyway. And with the entire force of the guardsmen with them, someone was bound to get hurt.

He glanced over at Jared. "You got any energy left in you?"

"For this?" Jared said, shaking out his arms. "More than."

Jared's localized snowstorm scattered the guardsmen in minutes and, while he wasn't so naïve to think that they wouldn't be followed, Jensen was pleased to be able to get a good head start.

"So," he said, once it was just them and the ravens in a field of fresh fallen snow. "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere but Tjal," Jared said fervently. "Let the ravens choose."

That sounded like a wise idea to Jensen. "How about it, Onnes? You led me to Jared, after all. Feel up to leading us to a new home as well?"

"It would be my pleasure."

"I can't believe you guys are actually gods," Jensen said, shaking his head at the wonder of it all.

That earned him the same croaking laugh that he'd been hearing all his life, and an amused voice behind it saying, "You humans should be used to getting things only partly right. It seems to be a habit. And speaking of which…"

"Mm?" Jensen said, most of his attention on the way Jared slipped his arm back around Jensen's waist like it belonged there.

Onnes took to wing, his voice echoing in Jensen's ears as he went. "I've been waiting years for the chance to tell you this, Jensen: my name is Honest."


	4. Epilogue

_The boy passed the test._

_So did his friend._

_The others failed._

_So the birds promised to make the people regret their stubborn cruelty, while the boy and his friend went far away from the people who’d hurt them to start a new life together. And they lived happily ever after, because, sometimes, monsters are more deserving of happy endings than heroes are._

  


It was a nice day for traveling.

Jensen let his feet carry him along the well-worn path, cataloguing the minute changes in the landscape that had occurred in the time since he'd left. There weren't many, which wasn't surprising. He'd only been gone a couple of months.

A mere blink of an eye in his life, these days.

The temperature dropped noticeably as soon as he crested the hill that overlooked the shallow valley they'd made their home. Jensen smiled. 

It was good to be home.

Jensen started his slow, ambling way down the hill, enjoying his last few steps of warm summer air. Honest was settled on his shoulder, taking shameless advantage of the fact that Jensen's arm no longer grew tired from being held out to support the bird's weight. Patient and Stalwart were soaring overhead, more or less in time with Jensen's pace, while Benevolent and Loyal had gone off ahead, no doubt to tell Jared that they'd returned.

The valley was a picturesque spot, which was an almost embarrassingly large part of why they'd chosen it. They'd had the whole world - minus Tjal - to choose from, so they'd been able to be picky. In between one step and the next, Jensen stopped walking over emerald grass and started wading through a shimmering blanket of snow. In their valley, summer melted into winter in one seamless transition that left half the valley perpetually ice-locked while the rest experienced the seasons normally.

It wasn't entirely Jared's fault. Their cottage - conspicuously striking with its cheery red roof - was nestled in the foothills of the Rix Mountains, right next to the Golilian Pass. 

As it turned out, Jared made for an excellent mountain guide. Not in the least because he could ward snow off nearly as easily as he could create it.

Jared was waiting at the door by the time Jensen finished the trek to the cottage, his broad smile a now-familiar sight that never failed to make Jensen's heart lift.

"Hi," Jared said, hauling Jensen in for a kiss as soon as he was within grabbing distance. It was a warm, hungry sort of kiss, not as fierce as the ones they'd trade later tonight but more than enough to get Jensen's blood pumping. 

"Mmm," he hummed, when he pulled back. "Hi yourself. How was the Golilian Pass?"

"Generally uneventful," Jared answered, shifting away so they could walk inside. "How was the rest of the world?"

Jensen wasn't as good at staying still as he used to be. Part and parcel of being the undying keeper of a bunch of winged gods apparently. He'd worried how Jared would react to his wanderlust in the first few decades of their life together, but he'd learned that Jared didn't begrudge him his time away. When they had all the time in the world to spend together, a few weeks here and there was nothing to worry about.

And something Jensen had learned about having a house was that one of his greatest joys was coming back to it. 

"It's mostly in one piece," Jensen said, in answer to Jared's question.

One of Jared's eyebrows arched. "Mostly?"

"Another drought in Tjal," Jensen explained, with a passable attempt at nonchalance. His hand fisted as he added, "And a plague broke out in the southern part of the country over the summer."

Jensen knew that the disasters that had befallen Tjal were deserved, a cold reckoning for a longstanding lack of human compassion. In turning Jared away after all they'd done to him and all he'd done for them, the people of Tjal had broken faith with the gods that protected them. And gods, Jensen had discovered, had little respect for the disrespectful. 

He just wished it didn't continue to upset him so much.

Jared's arms wrapped around Jensen's waist, and Jensen sighed as he leaned back into Jared's broad chest.

"It's okay to be sad about it," Jared murmured.

"I've spent more of my life here than I ever did in Tjal," Jensen said, the words of the familiar argument rolling easily off his tongue. "And I know they deserve what they get. Why does it still bother me after all these years?"

"Because it was your home. That's never going to change."

"I have a new home now." Jensen tilted his head up to look into Jared's face. "A better one."

Jared smiled. "That's true. But you wouldn't be you if you didn't care about those who have no one to care about them." He closed the scant distance to press a kiss to Jensen's forehead. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."

"Likewise," Jensen murmured, chasing Jared's mouth with his own, and nothing more was said for a long time.

Just another day in the glamorous life of the former Bird Keeper of Kerak.

Jensen hoped it lasted for a thousand years.

~fin

  


**[Art Master Post](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/149625.html) **  


**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements:  
> I was brave (and lucky) this year and managed to claim the inestimable quickreaver for my artist, which was all kinds of fantastic. She is the master of haunting, beautiful images, and I had more ideas than I knew what to do with when it came to the piece that she submitted for claims this year. She was also very patient with me and my ludicrously long outline, even when I managed to make us miss our original posting day, and has created several gorgeous pieces to complement the story. Make sure you drop by her [Art Post](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/149625.html) and leave her some love!
> 
> Many thanks to dugindeep for helping me coordinate my many weird ideas into a single (hopefully) cohesive story, and for volunteering as a beta when I was losing my mind trying to balance RL, migraines and impending deadlines. I can always count on you, hon! You're awesome. :)
> 
> Thanks to our lovely mods who keep us running smoothly, year after year.
> 
> And finally, thank you to everyone who gives this story a try. I sincerely hope you enjoy it!
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **Please do not post links to my stories on Goodreads or any other third party website.**


End file.
